Section 6: Operational & Technical Competence “Tech & Operations Playbook for Farm Pro’s”
6.1 Knowledge of soil, water, and climate suitability assessment Before sowing dreams, how do you check the ground reality—soil, water and local climate? 👉 Think of it like choosing a school for your child: you don’t just see the building; you check teachers, commute, fees, and results. Similarly, a farm needs a baseline: soil health (pH, organic carbon, salts), water quality (EC, hardness, contaminants), and climate (heat units, frost risk, wind).
6.2 Crop planning and rotation design expertise; Do you pick crops like picking random items in a grocery basket, or do you design rotations like a chef plans a week’s menu? 👉 Good rotations balance soil nutrition, pest pressure, cash flow, and market timing (e.g., leafy → fruiting → legume).
6.3 Proficiency in irrigation design & water management; Q. When you lay out water, do you just “open the tap,” or do you engineer it like a good plumbing & finance plan—right pipe, right time, right dose? 👉 Think source → storage → filtration → distribution → scheduling (drip spacing, discharge, valves, automation).
6.4 Farm mechanization & infrastructure planning skills; Q. Is your farm a hand-tool workshop or a small factory with the right machines and roads where needed? 👉 Includes layout, roads, pack-shed, cold room, nursery benches, trellis, tractor/implements selection, and maintenance routines.
6.5 Knowledge of organic / sustainable / regenerative practices; Can you grow while giving back—soil life, biodiversity, and safe residues—without becoming a yield martyr? 👉 Composting/vermi, cover crops, mulches, biostimulants, IPM, residue-limit awareness, and practical transition plans.
6.6 Integrated Farming – Animal Husbandry; Do animals (cattle, goats, poultry, fish) live on your spreadsheet—or only on motivational posters? 👉 Linkages: dung/urine → compost/biogas, fodder blocks, pond nutrients → field fertility; risk hedging with egg/milk/meat cashflows.
6.7 Poly-house / open-field / crop-package know-how; Whether it’s protected cultivation or open field, are your Packages of Practice (PoPs) sharp and season-wise?
👉 Includes variety choice, planting density, trellis/pruning, microclimate tweaks (foggers/shade), hail/frost measures.
6.8 Irrigation, fertigation, pest management, and harvest planning; Q. Day-to-day playbook: do you run calendars or firefight? 👉 Think weekly fertigation recipes, scouting sheets, economic thresholds, pre-harvest intervals, and harvest maturity indices (color charts, Brix).
6.9 Integration of advanced IT/IoT monitoring tools; Are your decisions “feel-based,” or do sensors and dashboards whisper truths to you daily? 👉 Examples: soil moisture probes, weather stations, insect traps with counters, camera analytics, QR traceability, farm ERPs.
